# Thick-Walled Pipes: You Owe it to Yourself to Have One



## drastic_quench (Sep 12, 2008)

More briar holds more heat and holds it better.
A thick pipe stands a far better chance of smoking cooler and drier.
A thin-walled pipe can be a great smoker, but the briar it's made of needs to be exceptional -- a thick pipe literally gives you a better margin of error.
Thick pipes leave more briar for the carver to play with, and they tend to have a great deal of curvature and character.
They make outstanding flake pipes as flakes burn hotter, and that extra briar is a heat sink.
Very, very difficult to have a burn out. You will smoke this pipe for life.

I define thick as walls that are near a half inch or greater. Smokingpipes.com makes this easy. Take their measurement for the outside diameter, subtract the bowl diameter, and divide that number by two.

My favorite is a Johs Dublin/calabash that I got for a mere $75 new. At the rim, the walls are nearly an inch. My Stanwell 217 is my first thick-walled pipe, and it too smokes just as well as a meerschaum. Get a thick-walled pipe!

Johs









Look at those walls compared to a regular old Chacom Dublin!


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## drastic_quench (Sep 12, 2008)

Stanwell 217 - Courtesy of Frenchy


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## Contrabass Bry (May 3, 2010)

While I agree with your logic, extra briar means extra weight. Some don't like bents or being relegated to cradling a pipe for the entire smoke.

But for a nice long, cool smoke, a thick-walled number will likely win out! I have a two-fisted attack on heat with my meer. The walls are at least 3/4" thick. Smokes like a dream... I have to check to make sure it's lit a lot of the time.

OT: Do you find any issue with "off flavors" by using those waterproof matches? All the extra wax (or whatever it is) would concern me...


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## phinz (Jan 5, 2010)

Funny thing is, my best smoker is a Dunhill. One of my worst is a Boswell. The Boswell has crazy thick walls. The Dunny is one of my most delicate, thin-bowled pipes.

I have Grandi that has thick walls and does a pretty good job, though.


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## GioPipes (Jul 27, 2012)

I have both thick and thin walled pipes but I find myself gravitating to the more classic shape and dimension pipes, they get warmer but it seems as though they smoke nicer.


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## Contrabass Bry (May 3, 2010)

That's a good perspective as well. What are really after is a piece of briar that is able to dissipate heat well, not retain it. Based on the quality of the briar, that could be accomplished effectively with thinner walls.

So now the conundrum, is what we're all after a cool smoke, a cool pipe or both?

Discuss.


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## drastic_quench (Sep 12, 2008)

I used those waterproof ones in a pinch, not a go-to match. I didn't notice anything that weekend though.


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## Lord Wigglybottom (Sep 19, 2008)

Both, ideally, and with my limited experience I'd say that most pipes I'll come by will be an even trade-off between cool smoke and suavacity (hey, you can wordulate anything).

The more I haunt the pipe sites and ebay in particular, the more my aesthetic taste in pipes is expanding. I'll learn how to make a slightly awkward pipe feel comfortable in my hand if it smokes well enough. Just like I'll do my best to learn to smoke a snazzy-looking pipe well if it should happen to prove a little more challenging than normal. Or, at least I'd give it as many chances as I possibly could. Maybe that's just my newbie enthusiasm and lack of having developed any kind of personal "style" of smoking yet, I dunno.

If both were in my collection, which I smoked would of course depend on my mood that night. Some nights I just want to sit with a pipe and enjoy the quiet, some nights I feel like tinkering a bit.


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## mturnmm (May 18, 2011)

I would agree with your signature with one caveat "A man who is wearing a watch while smoking a pipe/cigar is doing it wrong"


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